Strategies to Support Thriving Food Systems Through Good Governance

Explore insights from the second Accelerating Policy Change webinar

By Patrick Glass, Nessia Berner Wong & Katie Hannon Michel 

  • The second webinar in our Accelerating Policy Change series brought together leaders from local government, health systems, and community organizations to explore how local and state policy can transform food systems.
  • Did you miss the second webinar? Watch the recording.
  • Keep reading for highlights and lessons learned from our webinar Supporting Thriving Food Systems Through Good Governance.

Partnering Across Sectors to Strengthen Local Food Systems

As communities across the country face inequitable access to fresh, healthy food, state and local governments and community organizations are stepping up with innovative, equity-centered strategies. ChangeLab Solutions' recent webinar Accelerating Policy Change: Supporting Thriving Food Systems Through Good Governance focused on how cross-sector collaboration, policy tools, and community-directed approaches are enabling meaningful food systems change at the local and state levels.

"It’s great to see ChangeLab Solutions putting the spotlight on community-led solutions for reducing health disparities." ― Francine R. Vega, PhD candidate, University of Texas Health Science Center

Moderated by ChangeLab Solutions planner Edgar Camero, the conversation featured Donna Elliott, assistant vice president, outreach and resource development, Kintegra Health; Donyel B. Barber, director of access and engagement, Kintegra Health, and city council member, Gastonia, North Carolina; and Katie Hannon Michel, senior attorney, ChangeLab Solutions. Presenters and panelists discussed the legal landscape around food systems, strategies for good governance, and how community engagement can create stronger, healthier, and more equitable communities.

Watch the full webinar recording, or keep reading for insights and key strategies from Supporting Thriving Food Systems Through Good Governance.

1. Local Authority Enables Changes to Food Systems

The term “legal authority” describes a government body’s legal ability to take action on various topics — including food systems — by using tools such as community engagement, data collection, scientific research, policies, regulations, enforcement, and the many methods of sharing information and guidance with those who need it most. In short, “legal authority” delineates what a government body can work on, and how. To help build equitable food systems, government officials must partner with each other, and with food policy advocates, community and institutional leaders, and other changemakers to identify community needs and aspirations, and consider how they can leverage their existing legal authority to bring about desired changes in their communities.

During the webinar, participants shared about the various types of food system interventions they were working on at the local level, including food policy councils, nutrition assistance, and food system waste and recovery. These are all examples of how community changemakers are leaning into opportunities to use local authority to change parts of the food system. ChangeLab Solutions’ Katie Hannon Michel also talked about zoning as an example of local authority in action. Zoning, which is an area of local authority that is largely outside the purview of the federal government, has allowed localities to support food access by expanding where community gardens or grocery stores can be located. Cities like Austin, Texas and Birmingham, Alabama have used their zoning authority to address community-identified needs. But zoning is just one of many policy options enabled by local authority. State and local governments can also pass laws to support cottage food operations, strengthen worker protections, or enforce against workforce abuses in food-systems employment.

"What you can work on at state and local levels, and how — also known as legal authority — is an important topic for any policy area, including food systems,” said Hannon Michel. “While the federal policy landscape is shifting, we continue to have many opportunities to exercise state and local authority in the food policy space."

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2. Good Governance Practices Are Crucial for Impactful Food Systems Change

For government officials, food policy advocates, and community and institutional leaders, the term “good governance” means making sure that policy processes are inclusive, transparent, and grounded in shared decision-making. It also includes processes that foster a clear understanding among partners about a government body’s scope of legal authority, including which policy change opportunities are feasible within the existing legal landscape. These principles of good governance apply throughout the policymaking process — from issue identification, policy selection, design, and adoption to implementation, enforcement, and evaluation. Food systems become healthier and more equitable when communities get to shape decisions that affect them. Research confirms that increased democratic participation directly correlates to improved community conditions — including increased food access — and better health.

In Gastonia, North Carolina, good governance practices have led to real-world improvements in the local food system. As Donyel B. Barber and Donna Elliott shared during the webinar, the Highland Neighborhood Association, a grassroots organization led by residents, partnered with Kintegra Health and local government to launch RAM’s Kitchen, which is a healthy food enterprise created in direct response to community health concerns. This was a project that they launched while participating in the BUILD Health Challenge, an initiative that invests in multi-sector, community-centered partnerships that transform systems and elevate community power to advance health and racial justice. The panelists explained how the Highland Neighborhood Association built trust between residents and traditional decision-makers to begin the process of flipping responsibilities and power within the decision-making process. Rather than immediately delving into policy considerations, the Neighborhood Association started with informal gatherings that helped residents and officials connect as people; it was this person-to-person connection that ultimately laid the groundwork for community leadership and enduring systems change.

Highland’s governance model puts community leadership at the center. Residents hold most of the power in decision-making and institutional partners like Kintegra Health and the City of Gastonia play supporting roles. “These folks here in this neighborhood are experts,” Donna Elliott said during the webinar. “They're the people that know what's going on, how systems are impacting them, the real experience of what problems are. And you know who knows the answers to problems? People experiencing problems.”

As ChangeLabs’ Katie Hannon Michel shared during the webinar, good governance means more than just having the right policies on paper; it’s about committing to shared decision-making and ensuring that residents have real power to shape the entire process of policy change.

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3. Food Policy Change Must Include Equitable Implementation

Transforming food systems requires not only passing new policies, but also implementing and sustaining those policies over the longer term with community needs and leadership in the driver’s seat. Equitable implementation describes the steps of the policy process that follow enactment, including enforcement, evaluation, and revision. Law and policy alone — without implementation that reflects the input, engagement, experience, and guidance of the community members whom the policies will affect — will not achieve the outcomes that we hope for. In practice, implementation that centers equity and lived experience requires coordination across sectors. During the webinar, ChangeLab’s Katie Hannon Michel shared lessons from her earlier work helping farmers’ markets in Berkeley, CA, accept Women, Infants, & Children (WIC) benefits — a pilot program for farmer’s markets across the state that were looking to increase access to healthy foods. The project succeeded over the longer term because farmers, WIC recipients, community-based organizations, and government staff worked closely together to build trust and iron out wrinkles that appeared throughout the policy rollout phase. As Katie explained, these types of collaboration often make the difference between policy that sounds good in theory and policy that works in the real world.

The webinar panelists from Gastonia, NC, also talked about policy implementation that centers equity and people with lived experience looks like on the ground. For example, they explained that employees of RAM’s Kitchen receive full health benefits through Kintegra Health. And because the enterprise is housed within a formal partnership structure, the Highland Neighborhood Association can access larger grants and new sources of support. Gastonia’s residents and city government sought to replicate the Highland Neighborhood Association’s success in 10 to 12 neighborhood associations across the city by offering funding, dedicated city staff liaisons, and other resources that help residents lead and sustain food and health initiatives. In short, the Highland Neighborhood Association approach is a replicable model of cross-sector collaboration that supports community self-determination.

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4. Power Mapping and Data Equip Communities to Shift Stakeholder Dynamics

When engaging in the policy change process, communities need tools that help them appraise and shift power to create lasting food systems change that reflects community priorities. As Donyel B. Barber and Donna Elliott shared, that’s why Highland Neighborhood Association members participated in power mapping, a tool commonly used by policy professionals to identify key stakeholders and build strategic alliances that can even help bring opponents on-board. In Highland, residents themselves used power mapping to navigate decision-making systems and identify leverage points. Bringing in tools like power mapping helped clarify who needed to be at the table to support policy change and what roles everyone could play.

“Sometimes it was hard for formal decision makers to let go of that power,” recalled Donyel B. Barber. “But when you bring people together in more of a social atmosphere, that’s when true relationships begin to be built.”

Access to neighborhood-specific health data was also important for Highland residents. Seeing local rates of chronic disease helped residents better understand individual and community needs within the context of systemic drivers like housing and food access. Data access also helped generate a sense of collective ownership and a deeper understanding between residents and institutional stakeholders. With support from ChangeLab Solutions staff, the Highland Neighborhood Association staff helped influence the inclusion of a food access question in the county’s Community Health Needs Assessment, which formalized a method for long-term data tracking for food system quality at the neighborhood level.

“It might seem like a small thing but adding that one question to the Community Health Needs Assessment has been huge,” Donyel B. Barber explained. “Now we can track food access over time, by neighborhood, by census tract. It’s a tool we can show at every level of power to ask: here's where we were five years ago, are we making progress or not?”

These efforts are part of a broader shift in Gastonia toward data equity and community-driven strategy. Residents are using tools like data and power mapping to create effective, localized solutions. For example, data on RAM’s Kitchen now tracks food distribution, employment outcomes, and health impact. Collaborations like this between the Neighborhood Association, Gastonia’s public health department, and federally qualified health centers like Kintegra Health have made it possible to measure success among community-led initiatives and strengthen the case for sustained investment.

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Accelerating Policy Change: Join Us for Upcoming Events

We had 932 registrants for Accelerating Policy Change: Supporting Thriving Food Systems Through Good Governance, representing all 50 US states, Puerto Rico, and Washington DC.

We found that 92% of attendees who filled out the exit survey reported satisfaction with the webinar, with 55% of those reporting that they were “highly satisfied.” In addition, after the webinar, 90% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that the webinar increased their “capacity to use good governance strategies to support healthy, thriving food systems.”

"ChangeLab Solutions is a great training partner! Check out this new training series.” ― Janna Simon, director, Center for Policy & Partnership Initiatives at Illinois Public Health Institute

Coming soon:

  • Our second regional in-person convening in the Accelerating Policy Change series will take place on Thursday, June 26, 2025, in Los Angeles, California. Register here! We hope you’ll join us!
  • The third webinar in our Accelerating Policy Change series will be announced soon. Stay tuned!

Support Accelerating Policy Change! We have sponsorship opportunities at many levels. Learn more about how to become a sponsor. 

This project was made possible in part by support from The Kresge Foundation and the Blue Shield of California Foundation. We also thank our event sponsors TDE Consulting Group and Ma Der Collaborations. 

5/15/2025